WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 (APP):Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was lauded on Wednesday by Pakistani Americans and people of various walks of life for taking a bold stand on Kashmir in the UN General Assembly who urged the world community to help resolve the lingering dispute which has claimed lives of tens of thousands of innocent people.

Talking to APP after the speech, members of the Pakistani American community also called on the political parties back home to leave political difference aside and support the government in drawing world attention to the Indian brutalities in the Occupied Kashmir.

Prime Minister Sharif, supporting the demand of the Kashmiri people in unequivocal terms, demanded an independent inquiry into the extra-judicial killings and a UN fact finding mission to investigate the Indian brutalities. He made it clear that resolution of the Kashmir dispute was indispensable for peace and normalization between Pakistan and India.

“It is the first time that Kashmir issue has been raised vigorously on world forums,” said Fitzgerald Lewis, a noted attorney in Washington metropolitan region who commended the efforts of the present government in Pakistan. “The PM has presented Kashmir case and India’s state terrorism very effectively,” he said.

He said the world leaders should pay heed to the grave consequences as alluded to by Prime Minister Sharif, in case the Kashmir issue was not addressed in its spirit, which could even endanger the world peace as both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers.

Mr. Hamid Malik, President Pakistan Link International said that the entire Pakistani American community was behind the Nawaz Sharif government and fully endorsed its policies.

He said that it was for the first time that any Pakistani leader not only took up the issue so strongly but spoke with conviction and offered the world body to share evidence of the Indian brutalities which has claimed over 100 lives in the renewed phase of violence that has gripped the valley since July, when a young Kashmiri freedom fighter was martyred.

Prime Minister told the UN General Assembly that Pakistan will share a dossier containing evidence of the gross and systematic violations of human rights committed by Indian forces in Occupied Kashmir.

A protest rally has been planned by Pakistani Americans and Kashmiri outfits outside the United Nations on September 26 when Indian Minister will address the General Assembly to register their protest over the ongoing violence in Kashmir and to urge the world body to fulfill its promise of getting right of self-determination for the Kashmiri people.

Renowned Kashmiri leader and Secretary General of US-based World Kashmir Awareness, Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai paid tributes to the Prime Minister for his speech and thanked the government of Pakistan for providing moral support and raising the Kashmir issue in meetings with world leaders during UN General Assembly.

Prime Minister Sharif used his meetings with several world leaders on the sidelines of the General Assembly to highlight the Kashmir issue and seek their support to end the Indian brutalities unleashed on innocent Kashmiri people.

Annie Kameron of George Mason University and Salim Akhtar, National Director of American Muslim Alliance (AMA) praised Prime Minister Sharif’s efforts to bring the Kashmir issue on international scene.

He said Pakistani American community has appreciated Prime Minister Sharif for highlighting the misery of unarmed Kashmiris and state terrorism of India.

Several Pakistani Americans said that while Prime Minister Sharif is using every platform to highlight the Kashmir issue, Pakistani politicians were devoting their energy to malign the government for their petty interests and lust for power.

They called on all politicians to shun their differences and said it was time to get united behind the government and send a clear message to the world that the whole Pakistani nation wants the resolution of the Kashmir dispute.